About six months ago I purchased a new Honda EU20I generator which I "ran in" and has been on Honda oil and always fresh petrol. It has done about 70 hours of work at mainly around 400W. I have run it on "Eco" for about 75% of the time but usually switched to non-eco for the other 25% in order to give the engine a variation in speed/load.
Now: if one reads the caravan/4WD internet forums one would think Honda generators had an approval sticker from God on them or, at the least, one of his angels and this is especially so from the "You get what you pay for" brigade.
Whilst I agree that "You don't get what you don't pay for" simply buying the most expensive product on the market is no guarantee that item is a better product than one at, say, 50% of its price.
My reason for posting is that my Honda generator is currently back at the suppliers for warranty repair; it will run for anything from 20 minutes to two hours then begin to cough and splutter, drop the 240V output and repeat this behaviour a few times until it cuts out. I changed the plug for an identical NGK plug, made no difference.
This is not a bitch about my Honda generator: I have spent a working lifetime designing complex products and I fully understand that if you make X number of products there *will* be Y number of failures and maybe I just got a Y product, I'm sure Honda will fix it without issue.
What I am trying to say is... let's not elevate products to divine status simply because they are expensive and we have both money and self esteem invested in our ownership of them.
Even Honda fail sometimes.
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"I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it possible you may be mistaken"
Oliver Cromwell, 3rd August 1650 - in a letter to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland
Maybe an Exhaust valve clearance problem. Had one small Honda with symptoms the same as you describe . Ground a smidge off the valve stem and the motor performed faultlessly for ever after.
A common cause of such problems in small engines is the accumulation of dirt or sediment in the fine gauze strainer at the fuel tap or if no tap usually where the fuel line attaches the fuel tank. Usually simple to unscrew and clean.
Can you let us all know what the problem was, after it is repaired please
Many years ago I had a Honda engine water pump
One of the tappet arms developed a crack, (they were made from pressed light gauge steel)
When the engine got hot, one of the valves was not opening enough, for the engine to pump the water, and the engine would stall
In fact I collected the generator today and the (known) fault they diagnosed fits with the symptoms. A small part was replaced under warranty but I wish to confirm it has fixed the problem before publishing details. The weather in Melbourne is awful currently so it may take a few days before I can run the gen for enough hours but I shall let you know.
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"I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it possible you may be mistaken"
Oliver Cromwell, 3rd August 1650 - in a letter to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland
